Bombay high court's Nagpur bench, while quashing conviction of a man under POSCO case, said that saying 'I love you' is only an expression of feeling and does not in itself amount to "sexual intent."
The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has overturned the conviction of a 35-year-old man who was previously found guilty under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke, presiding over the matter, ruled that merely saying "I love you" does not signify sexual intent and therefore cannot be equated with molestation or sexual harassment under the law.
The man was accused in 2015 of allegedly approaching a 17-year-old girl on her way home from school, grabbing her hands and saying, "I love you." Following this incident, the girl informed her father, leading to the filing of an FIR. A Nagpur sessions court later convicted him in 2017 under the Indian Penal Code and POCSO Act, sentencing him to three years in prison.
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However, while reassessing the case, the High Court found that there was no evidence pointing to a sexual motive. “Words expressed 'I love you' would not by themselves amount to sexual intent as contemplated by the legislature,” the court observed.
It further emphasized that for an act to constitute molestation or sexual harassment, there must be clear indications of sexual intent such as “inappropriate touching, forcible disrobing, indecent gestures or remarks made with the intention to insult the modesty of a woman.”
The court elaborated, “There should be something more to suggest that the real intention behind saying 'I love you' was to drag the angle of sex.”
The bench concluded that expressing affection or romantic feelings does not automatically imply a predatory or sexual agenda. “If somebody says that he is in love with another person or expresses his feelings, that in itself would not amount to an intent showing some sort of sexual intention,” the order stated.
